Tillerson says leaders who 'conceal the truth' risk freedom

"If our leaders seek to conceal the truth, or we as people become accepting of alternative realities that are no long grounded in facts, then we as American citizens are on a pathway to relinquishing our freedom," Tillerson said in a commencement address, which was scheduled before he was ousted in March.

"A responsibility of every American citizen to each other is to preserve and protect our freedom by recognizing what truth is and is not, what a fact is and is not," he went on to say, "and begin by holding ourselves accountable to truthfulness and demand our pursuit of America's future be fact-based -- not based on wishful thinking, not hoped-for outcomes made in shallow promises, but with a clear-eyed view of the facts as they are, and guided by the truth that will set us free to seek solutions to our most daunting challenges."

"It is also that foundational commitment to truth and facts that binds us to other democratic, like-minded nations, that we Americans will always deal with them from the same set of truths and facts, and it is truth that says to our adversaries, 'we say what we mean and we mean what we say,'" he added. "When we as people, a free people, go wobbly on the truth, even on what may see the most trivial of matters, we go wobbly on America."

The beginning of the speech sounded like a foreign policy address, with Tillerson philosophizing about the importance of the US maintaining its historic alliances and keeping its adversaries in check.

He then went on to speak about the importance of personal integrity -- a favorite topic for him when addressing State Department staff as well.